Police described Towns, who has filed for bankruptcy three times, as the brains of the operation. She had been fired by the cemetery's owners because of theft allegations. Authorities also were investigating a memorial fund she set up in 2005 to build an Emmett Till museum and mausoleum at Burr Oak for the remains of Till, his mother and stepfather.
No construction work was ever done, and a Till family member said he hadn't heard from Towns in four years. Officials asked any donors to come forward.
Towns, who is being held on $250,000 bail, was placed in the psychiatric wing of Cermak Hospital in Chicago, authorities said.
In a May interview with the Chicago Tribune, Keith Nicks -- who has nearly a dozen arrests since 1998 on misdemeanor charges including assault, domestic battery and violating orders of protection -- said the cemetery made money but the owners weren't investing in equipment and upkeep.
"It's embarrassing to have to explain to people why the cemetery looks this way," said Nicks, who like other grounds workers wore a uniform with the words "Alive with history."
Distraught family members had bigger concerns than appearances.
JoAnn Dean, 66, worried about her blood pressure and diabetes as she sat in the heat waiting for access to cemetery records.
"They've opened old wounds," she said, then spoke the names of the dead she had buried there: her great-grandmother, Ella Britt; her grandfather, Robert Brown; her grandmother, Blanche Brown. They've been buried there since the 1950s, she said.
"They didn't think there'd be anyone here to connect the present to the past," Dean said. "I'm following up -- these are my loved ones."
The more Dean thought about it, the angrier she got.
"They threw the bodies to the side," she said. "Dogs and cats don't even get treated like that. . . . They threw our bodies to the side. I never thought I'd be going through this, never."
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lbowean@tribune.com
mwalberg@tribune.com
sschmadeke@tribune.com
Chicago Tribune reporters Erika Slife, Alena Scarver, Cara Anthony and Georgia Garvey contributed to this report.
